Troy group to make recommendations for city-wide composting program

TROY -- After seven months of hard work, the city's Citizen's Working Group on Composting has compiled several recommendations and is eager to present its findings to the City Council during a special meeting on Wednesday.

In a 60-page document, Chairwoman Abby Lublin said the plans to be presented blur the lines of partisan ideals because it proposes the idea of both environmental and fiscal sustainability. It tackles the idea of composting on two levels; the municipal and institutional level as well as a community level, in which residents can perform the composting process in their own backyards.

"We learned a ton," Lublin said of the research involved, which included touring composting and landfill facilities around the state. "When we started, we felt we are at the forefront, but we realized through research it's happening everywhere."

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Each recommendation has its own section, according to Lublin. One section will address the city's code, while others will focus on education and enforcement, recycling coordination, building a facility and partnering with local farms, composting on a neighborhood-wide scale, funding opportunities and city-wide collection.

Lublin said a municipal facility could not be considered a single solution but also noted not every house can view backyard composting as a viable option. For those interested in doing their own composting, Lublin said what she does is take a bucket, and, after cooking a meal, puts all of the food scraps no one will eat into it. Then, she suggests taking something such as leaves and putting them in the bucket. She also recommends adding woodchips to not only to mask the odor but also prevent rodents from getting into it.

"Depending on how hot it gets, you have compost for the garden," Lublin said. "We're using it for our benefit. We're just letting nature do what it does best."

Lublin explained that a municipal composting facility would reduce the amount of solid waste going into landfills, such as food scraps, which produce methane, the second most prevalent greenhouse gas, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency's website.

Having a facility would not only employ more people, but would generate revenue and could benefit municipalities outside of Troy as well.

Councilman Rodney Wiltshire, D-At Large, who authored the legislation with Councilman Ken Zalewski, D-District 5, to create the group, said the recommendations could include a composting director, who would have to be paid by the city, as well as some machinery. Some of the costs could be mitigated by grants available as well as the access to municipal solid waste facilities.

"The cost of doing this is very low but the reward and savings are very high," Wiltshire said. "As far as being good stewards of the environment and sustainability concerning waste streams, this is a fantastic thing to do."

The report, Wiltshire said, is easy enough to read and understand and added he was excited as to how dedicated the group was to the task.

The work group is comprised of Anasha Cummings, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student and sustainability advocate, Lucy Greetham, a research biologist at Evocative Design, Mary Alice Pasanen, a member of Transition Troy, Ken Youngs, business owner, and Lublin, who is a certified master composter and recycler, who serves as its chairperson.

Lublin said that while she is excited to give back to the community with this report, she is nervous because what it suggests some behavioral changes. Still, she believes this project goes beyond politics and it utilizes the collaboration of private and public sectors that has been promoted at the state government level.

"I'm excited to unveil this," Lublin said. "I'm excited for people who don't know about this to read about it."